[U-3C]

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.  Admitting that one has blown huge amounts of money on stuff that doesn't matter very much, does nothing, or worse, is harmful, is a hard truth to face.

Also, it seems like most of today's hobbyists are consumers -- believing a new piece of gear is the answer to everything.  

As opposed to pursuing a process to identify weaknesses in an audio chain and correct them, some of which may not require new gear at all.

TLDR; most audiophiles these days seem more interested in bragging about gear than how they got the best sound possible for the least money

Happy 3000th post! o(^_^)b

I'm curious what people will fit GuyUnders's standards. People who didn't bother with expensive DACs are dismissed. People who have experience with a large range of gear, from cheap to HOLYSCHIITTOPOFTHELINE expensive stuff and everything in between is dismissed. People who developed the very stuff GuyUnder uses or benefits from is mocked at.

GuyUnder, what you think is great or amazing sounding can easily sound like crap to others. It's not right or wrong. People just like different things. Claiming something is garbage based on pseudoscience really won't get you anywhere.

I'm sure by now you should know that you don't really understand much of how audio really work. What you seek to find here does not exist. You won't find any appreciation for showing off what you bought or for sharing what you have read online. This is clear to pretty much every one on this thread. If you can't offer advice that makes sense, please don't offer it to people who are equally confused.

*I deserve a pure bang on the head for being a hypocrite, as unlike many others here, I didn't spend my life to professionally study how audio works and to gather a deep understanding of how to make good music/sound .

 

[GuyUnder]

1. "Expected result", expected by what, how was that expectation created? It certainly wasn't created by the science, so that leaves; marketing BS and testimonials from shills and those who have already fallen for the marketing BS. And, you stated (here or in another thread) that you apparently "certainly don't suffer from expectation bias" and yet here you are completely contradicting yourself?!

You're trying too hard. The expected result is that a filtering product has no or very limited effect (i.e., not readily perceptible) on a product with a superior filtering technology built into it.

2. Just because you personally find something difficult, cannot figure out how to do it or just can't be bothered, does NOT mean it's "impossible"! Your misuse of the word "impossible" as part of such a weak excuse doesn't even stand up to scrutiny in a pub conversation, let alone here in the science forum!

You're being foolish. No one is going to go through the extreme logistics blind testing of gear requires. The level of time, effort and human support that would require on a frequent basis makes blind testing virtually impossible.

3. Then don't "rapidly" switch, switch slowly or however you want, to optimise your chances of identifying the difference! Of course you're not interested in this simple fact, you're only interested in any excuse, regardless of how irrational or pathetic, to support your marketing driven beliefs and faith in your resultant perception!

ABX testing software is specifically designed to allow rapid switching -- because the listener is expected to identify areas of difference and quickly compare them back to back to defeat the effects of audio memory. In fact, that is part of the ABX protocol -- have you actually taken any ABX challenges? The problem is, human audio perception isn't that convenient and likes to smear details over time, so the details I heard on the first pass quickly became impossible to tell apart. Less than half way through the 44.1 vs 96 test I literally couldn't tell the difference between the two and resorted to gut reactions because the software didn't have an option for "I don't know".

4. And again, more mis-information which shouldn't be capable of fooling even a high school student and here you are trying to peddle it against the whole world of science? "Quality" is a relative term and a subjective opinion, which therefore varies (sometimes wildly) from person to person and for this reason there is no such thing as a "true quality". Therefore, there obviously can't be a measurement for it. I can see how this argument/misuse of language might work on a gullible audiophile actively looking for any excuse to validate their flawed belief but how can you possibly think it would work here in a science forum?

You're trying too hard. Audio perception is heavily tied to neuroscience, so obviously we have no means currently of quantifying it.

5. Yep, educating oneself does take considerable effort. From the perspective of someone who "can't be bothered" (see #2 above), I can see how educating oneself could be viewed as "trying too hard". Of course, that's not a valid excuse for ignorance and worst still, trying to argue from a position of ignorance with those who have put in some effort.

You really are trying too hard.

6. OK. You've demonstrated you don't understand much about digital audio, now you're demonstrating you don't understand analogue audio either! Analogue audio is where something (an electrical current in this case) is used as an analogue to the acoustic sound pressure waves being recorded/reproduced. Unless your entire CD collection is of nothing other than 1.4mHz square waves, what's passing down you USB cable is NOT an analogue signal! The problem with an analogue signal is that being analogous, anything which contaminates that signal is reproduced. Pretty much the WHOLE reason why digital audio was invented in the first place, is because it's not susceptible to signal contamination. Apart from the fact that it's also an electrical current, what's passing down your USB cable has nothing in common with an analogue electrical signal! Within fairly extreme limits, it does not matter what quality or how contaminated that electrical current is, how perfectly square it is or is not or how much noise it contains, the digital data can still be recovered perfectly. In fact, the USB protocol does not even assume a square wave, it assumes an "eye" shaped signal and the USB specs are based on how this "eye pattern" is handled. So whether you've got an "ipurified" USB signal makes absolutely no difference, unless you make the square wave so perfect that it no longer complies with the USB specs (eye pattern)!

In you're effort to make me wrong over something you've unfortunately made yourself look ignorant. Did you know that square waves, just like sine waves, have a sound?

[VIDEO]https://youtu.be/1I3op4IKCMM[/VIDEO]

Of course I know the USB operates at frequencies far beyond human hearing, but the principal remains.

7. Oh dear! That might be viewed as "showing off" amongst the more extreme audiophile forums you're obviously more accustomed to but here it accomplishes the EXACT OPPOSITE! What you're actually "showing off" is your ignorance of jitter and your gullibility in actually buying snake oil. Embarrassment would actually be the appropriate response, rather than "showing off"! There's still time though, maybe one day you'll learn enough about how digital audio actually works and then the embarrassment will set in .. or maybe not, maybe you'll remain proudly ignorant and never realise you've been duped, who knows?

Jealous? It cost me $420 you know. Does any of your gear have an OCXO? I doubt it!

 

[U-3C]

 
Quote:

You're trying too hard. The expected result is that a filtering product has no or very limited effect (i.e., not readily perceptible) on a product with a superior filtering technology built into it.
You're being foolish. No one is going to go through the extreme logistics blind testing of gear requires. The level of time, effort and human support that would require on a frequent basis makes blind testing virtually impossible.
ABX testing software is specifically designed to allow rapid switching -- because the listener is expected to identify areas of difference and quickly compare them back to back to defeat the effects of audio memory. In fact, that is part of the ABX protocol -- have you actually taken any ABX challenges? The problem is, human audio perception isn't that convenient and likes to smear details over time, so the details I heard on the first pass quickly became impossible to tell apart. Less than half way through the 44.1 vs 96 test I literally couldn't tell the difference between the two and resorted to gut reactions because the software didn't have an option for "I don't know".
You're trying too hard. Audio perception is heavily tied to neuroscience, so obviously we have no means currently of quantifying it.
You really are trying too hard.
In you're effort to make me wrong over something you've unfortunately made yourself look ignorant. Did you know that square waves, just like sine waves, have a sound?

Of course I know the USB operates at frequencies far beyond human hearing, but the principal remains.
Jealous? It cost me $420 you know. Does any of your gear have an OCXO? I doubt it!

​...you're trying waaaay to hard...
 

 
Also...did you really quote that video? What is the argument again? What is it suppose to prove? -_-;
 
And...did you really have to throw out, of all things, the price of some component you bought to justify something (how does that even work)? Does any of your gear have a Plesant Hearth? I doubt it! It cost 600 bucks you know and I assembled it yesterday. It glows too! Jealous? :^D
 

 

[cel4145]

Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.  Admitting that one has blown huge amounts of money on stuff that doesn't matter very much, does nothing, or worse, is harmful, is a hard truth to face.

+1

And once someone has done it for decades, then definitely why would we ever expect them to change? Gotta get them when they are relatively new to the hobby.

 

[U-3C]

+1

And once someone has done it for decades, then definitely why would we ever expect them to change? Gotta get them when they are relatively new to the hobby.

​*cough*

One of my friend's cheap 5 dollar headphones broke. First thing I did was drag him around the city to listen to all the top headphone shops, from the Stax Omega 2 to the HD800 to all the popular mid-fi products out there. I also carried my headphones and my laptop, and we listened/compared until we were kicked out.
 
He ended up being very happy with a 10 dollar headphone upgrade with dsp, as I showed him just how little you get going from 10 dollars plus dsp to $5k worth of setup.
 

---

 
Head-Fi does feel like it has reached an all-time low. Not that I've been here long or that I've scanned the entire site. I just feel like my world view of the site has collapsed and my faith in most of the humans on this site is completely lost. I usually think the 5 year old kids I interact with are quite stupid, but even they show at least some critical thinking skills, even with their curiosity and ignorance!

 

[cel4145]

You're being foolish. No one is going to go through the extreme logistics blind testing of gear requires. The level of time, effort and human support that would require on a frequent basis makes blind testing virtually impossible.

So instead, people give up and spend lots of money on things that they CANNOT know without blind testing whether or not it's better? That makes a lot of sense.

 

[watchnerd]

+1

And once someone has done it for decades, then definitely why would we ever expect them to change? Gotta get them when they are relatively new to the hobby.

 
It's like asking someone to convert religions at that point.

 

[watchnerd]

No one is going to go through the extreme logistics blind testing of gear requires.

 
Uh....I have, more than a few times.  At home.  Using my wife and a folding screen between me and the gear.  No rapid switching, just leave a setup it in place for a few hours or even days
 
It's single blind, and not worthy of publication, but for me it was very educational to see what I could actually hear.  
 
Also, there are these guys, who did it in a local group:
 
http://matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm

 

[U-3C]

   
It's like asking someone to convert religions at that point.

​People who do convert, though usually look at everything and have a much better understanding of both religions than those who grow up in a religion, so when they convert, they tend to hold the values and customs of the new religion much higher than those born in an environment of said religion. Ironic in some sense, but indeed, these outsiders tend to practice a religion more faithfully, as it was an active choice and not just because it's what they were told to do. These people can usually attack defend both religions much better than natives of said religions as they went through the conflicts for themselves and had to look at everything, while natives of a certain religious community may simply uphold certain values and disregard others without actually knowing why.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

1. "Expected result", expected by what, how was that expectation created? It certainly wasn't created by the science, so that leaves; marketing BS and testimonials from shills and those who have already fallen for the marketing BS. And, you stated (here or in another thread) that you apparently "certainly don't suffer from expectation bias" and yet here you are completely contradicting yourself?!

You're trying too hard. The expected result is that a filtering product has no or very limited effect (i.e., not readily perceptible) on a product with a superior filtering technology built into it.

Again, I'm assuming he measured the raw USB signal going through / not going through the "purifier" rather than the sound coming out of the iDSD.

2. Just because you personally find something difficult, cannot figure out how to do it or just can't be bothered, does NOT mean it's "impossible"! Your misuse of the word "impossible" as part of such a weak excuse doesn't even stand up to scrutiny in a pub conversation, let alone here in the science forum!

You're being foolish. No one is going to go through the extreme logistics blind testing of gear requires. The level of time, effort and human support that would require on a frequent basis makes blind testing virtually impossible.

That's why we leave it to the pros and psychoacoustics research scientists to do it. And they already did. And we're not going to listen to you try to throw decades of scientific work out the window because you think you heard something while casually plugging your headphones into one thing or another.

3. Then don't "rapidly" switch, switch slowly or however you want, to optimise your chances of identifying the difference! Of course you're not interested in this simple fact, you're only interested in any excuse, regardless of how irrational or pathetic, to support your marketing driven beliefs and faith in your resultant perception!

ABX testing software is specifically designed to allow rapid switching -- because the listener is expected to identify areas of difference and quickly compare them back to back to defeat the effects of audio memory. In fact, that is part of the ABX protocol -- have you actually taken any ABX challenges? The problem is, human audio perception isn't that convenient and likes to smear details over time, so the details I heard on the first pass quickly became impossible to tell apart. Less than half way through the 44.1 vs 96 test I literally couldn't tell the difference between the two and resorted to gut reactions because the software didn't have an option for "I don't know".

Could it be... that "you don't know"... because you don't know? To put it more precisely.... you only "knew" which was which when you were LOOKING at the files, not listening to them.

4. And again, more mis-information which shouldn't be capable of fooling even a high school student and here you are trying to peddle it against the whole world of science? "Quality" is a relative term and a subjective opinion, which therefore varies (sometimes wildly) from person to person and for this reason there is no such thing as a "true quality". Therefore, there obviously can't be a measurement for it. I can see how this argument/misuse of language might work on a gullible audiophile actively looking for any excuse to validate their flawed belief but how can you possibly think it would work here in a science forum?

You're trying too hard. Audio perception is heavily tied to neuroscience, so obviously we have no means currently of quantifying it.

To explain it in terms of neuroscience is hard, sure. To quantify what can be distinguished and what can't in terms of listening test results, no, we don't need any of that.

Then too we have gone into plenty of technical details as to why there shouldn't even BE any differences in the sound to be heard. By your own admission any USB audio device reclocking the signal on their end wouldn't suffer from any jitter effects unless the signal were lost completely. Well newsflash, any asynchronous USB device does just that.

6. OK. You've demonstrated you don't understand much about digital audio, now you're demonstrating you don't understand analogue audio either! Analogue audio is where something (an electrical current in this case) is used as an analogue to the acoustic sound pressure waves being recorded/reproduced. Unless your entire CD collection is of nothing other than 1.4mHz square waves, what's passing down you USB cable is NOT an analogue signal! The problem with an analogue signal is that being analogous, anything which contaminates that signal is reproduced. Pretty much the WHOLE reason why digital audio was invented in the first place, is because it's not susceptible to signal contamination. Apart from the fact that it's also an electrical current, what's passing down your USB cable has nothing in common with an analogue electrical signal! Within fairly extreme limits, it does not matter what quality or how contaminated that electrical current is, how perfectly square it is or is not or how much noise it contains, the digital data can still be recovered perfectly. In fact, the USB protocol does not even assume a square wave, it assumes an "eye" shaped signal and the USB specs are based on how this "eye pattern" is handled. So whether you've got an "ipurified" USB signal makes absolutely no difference, unless you make the square wave so perfect that it no longer complies with the USB specs (eye pattern)!

In you're effort to make me wrong over something you've unfortunately made yourself look ignorant. Did you know that square waves, just like sine waves, have a sound?

[VIDEO]https://youtu.be/1I3op4IKCMM[/VIDEO]

Of course I know the USB operates at frequencies far beyond human hearing, but the principal remains.

...point? Should we start plugging headphones instead of USB audio devices into our USB ports now?

7. Oh dear! That might be viewed as "showing off" amongst the more extreme audiophile forums you're obviously more accustomed to but here it accomplishes the EXACT OPPOSITE! What you're actually "showing off" is your ignorance of jitter and your gullibility in actually buying snake oil. Embarrassment would actually be the appropriate response, rather than "showing off"! There's still time though, maybe one day you'll learn enough about how digital audio actually works and then the embarrassment will set in .. or maybe not, maybe you'll remain proudly ignorant and never realise you've been duped, who knows?

Jealous? It cost me $420 you know. Does any of your gear have an OCXO? I doubt it!

Why should anyone be jealous of how somebody wastes their money?

 

[watchnerd]

 Well newsflash, any asynchronous USB device does just that.
 

 
The number of people who simultaneously use USB reclockers with asyncrhonous USB DACs that have their own internal clock oscillators (usually 2 of them)... well, it just blows my mind how doing so even makes any sense to them.
 
Unless, of course, they don't understand how any of it works at all.  In which case it makes perfect sense.

 

[GuyUnder]

I commented on the analog transmission of digital signals. Trying too hard to find fault in something I said several posters jumped on it.

Although I'm starting to wonder now if they are legitimately confused about the difference between digital and analog.

Digital is 1s and 0s. But 1s and 0s are an imaginary concept that is useful for our brains but don't exist as entities in the natural world. So to make physical devices that can operate off of this imaginary concept, we have to create some form of physical approximations. The answer we arrived at is the on-off or high-low gate based on voltage swings over a period of time. This is the square wave and exists purely in the analog domain. It distorts and degrades during transmission like any other analog signal.

Let's go further.

Not only are digital signals in the analog domain during transmission -- they are ALWAYS in the analog domain, from your disk drive until the moment it enters the output stage of the DAC. What is happening in your CPU, RAM, DAC, etc, are very minute and rapid switching of analog signals.

 

[watchnerd]

I commented on the analog transmission of digital signals. Trying too hard to find fault in something I said several posters jumped on it.

Although I'm starting to wonder now if they are legitimately confused about the difference between digital and analog.

Digital is 1s and 0s. But 1s and 0s are an imaginary concept that is useful for our brains but don't exist as entities in the natural world. So to make physical devices that can operate off of this imaginary concept, we have to create some form of physical approximations. The answer we arrived at is the on-off or high-low gate based on voltage swings over a period of time. This is the square wave and exists purely in the analog domain. It distorts and degrades during transmission like any other analog signal.
 

 
Are you trying to describe quantization error?

 

[gregorio]

1. You're being foolish.

2. The level of time, effort and human support that would require on a frequent basis makes blind testing virtually impossible.

3. You really are trying too hard. In you're effort to make me wrong over something you've unfortunately made yourself look ignorant. Did you know that square waves, just like sine waves, have a sound?

4. Jealous? It cost me $420 you know.

5. Does any of your gear have an OCXO?

 
1. Ah, hypocrisy! Perfect example, well done.
 
2. So now you've gone from "impossible" to "virtually impossible". Keep going and you'll get there, eventually!
 
3. There's two answers to this: A. No they don't, square waves can't travel through air and even if they could, the ear can't respond to them. Instead of actual square waves, we have to generate an approximation of a square wave by modulating sine waves. B. Square waves are greenish with a rather bitter after-taste.
"A" is the product of an education, which took quite some time and effort. "B" is complete nonsense which I made up in 5 seconds and took virtually no effort.
You're right, just making up nonsense is way, way easier but then I'd have to be astonishingly stupid in order to post made up nonsense on a science forum. Not only astonishing stupid from the point of view of being completely ignorant but astonishingly stupid from the point of view of not even being able to realise when everyone responding is trying to tell me I'm ignorant and astonishingly stupid!! Thanks for precisely demonstrating my point, you're not trying hard enough, not by a long, long way!
4. That's funny. Paying $420 and not learning your lesson, now that's a waste.
5. Sorry, no. I only work with high-end professional audio equipment, I don't listen to consumer equipment much these days and I certainly do NOT buy snake oil, even relatively cheap $420 snake oil.
 
I won't bother responding to any of your other points, they're just made-up nonsense and you wouldn't understand my answers anyway.
 
G

 

[VNandor]

 

Cool. it's not surprising after all, since any kind of waveform have a sound except if the waveform we are talking about is a flat line. But what does square waves having a sound have to do with the topic? The signal that passes through the USB cable is carrying information for your DAC, it's not connected to your headphone by any means. I mean what's the point of this video?
 
EDIT: Just to be more precise, if we look at the waveform as a function that can be differentiated and the function's derivative is other than 0 then it's going to have a "sound" if I'm not mistaken so yeah, square waves don't fit into this description but the actual movement of the transcuder/actual electrical waveform does.